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Old 05-28-2018, 08:04 AM   #1
riffboy
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Default Reaper's "Blacklisting" process ?

Hi all!

I experimented with some Distortion-Pedal-FX-VSTs , some were freeware (like "TS-999" by Ignite Amps or "Fuzz Plus 3" by Audio Damage),
out of 5 Plugins, 3 got "blacklisted" by Reaper (5.80, Win7, 64-bit).

They just don't show up in Reaper.

In Ableton Live 9.7.6, they all show up.

I've only played each one for a couple of minutes, but so far no problems.

So how reliable is Reaper's "blacklisting" process from your experience and is there a way to risk your sanity and turn it off?

And is it a good idea to load plugins that Reaper blacklisted into a "host inside the host" like PatchWork by Blue Cat?

Sunny greetings from Berlin!
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Old 06-01-2018, 05:34 AM   #2
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OK, even more experienced users don't seem to know anything about this, so I'm going to try and answer my own question.

There is no way to turn Reaper's blacklisting-process off.

In the meantime, the "Fuzz Plus 3"-plugin has crashed Ableton twice, so I deinstalled that.
Didn't like the sound very much anyways.

But while experimenting with all this, I found out that Reaper blacklisted some more plugins, not just the newer distortion-plugins.

For example an older Version (3) of "RealStrat" by musiclab.
I don't use that very often, but in Ableton, I never had any problems with this.

So in general, I would say that Reaper (5.90) seems to be more aggresive than Ableton Live 9.7.6 when it comes to blacklisting.

That might be a good thing if it leads to less crashes, but from my experience, Ableton is not crashing very often.

If I find a plugin to be problematic (like Fuzz Plus 3), I de-install it and there's no problem.

Even with bigger sessions, around 50 Tracks, lots of third-party-plugins, I had no problems with that in Ableton (I would be careful with Max-for-Live-Devices, but that's a different story).

Another thing: If Ableton crashes, almost nothing gets lost.
Next time you start the program, there's an option to rebuild your session from the undo-history, which works quite nice.

If Reaper crashes (happened once while trying out distortion/amp-plugins), everything is lost.

I was just experimenting, so it wasn't a big deal, but if something like that happens with a 50-track-session, it will be.

I thought Reaper might be a great DAW for working with bigger projects/ final mixdown, but now I'm not too sure anymore.

Especially with those bigger projects, some kind of "crash-recovery-option" is really important in my eyes.

One last observation: Even if a plugin is buggy, often there is a workaround.

When Serum by Xfer Records came out, for some time there was a crashing-bug for me in Ableton. If I deleted the plugin, Ableton crashed.

The workaround: don't delete the plugin. Play the pattern and then freeze the track, no need to delete it as it uses no CPU after that.

I guess, if I had tried Reaper at the time, it wouldn't even have given me the chance to find a workaround, Serum would just not have been useable.

Serum let's you import your own wavetables, you can't replicate certain sounds with other synth-plugins, so that would have been a problem.

That's why I prefer less aggresive blacklisting, like in Ableton.
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Old 06-01-2018, 06:20 AM   #3
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Could you please show the whole process, cause I don't understand what are you talking about. This app will help you to record your screen: https://cockos.com/licecap/
If you want to return all the plugins, just go to Preferences->Plug-ins->VST and click "Clear cache/re-scan" button.
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Old 06-01-2018, 06:40 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vitalker View Post
cause I don't understand what are you talking about.
If memory serves, if a plugin errors/crashes while being initialized Reaper may blacklist it and not load it any longer, but I forget the entry in the various plugin.ini files that designates this. Faint memory tells me that sometimes deleting reaper-vstplugins.ini as an example will clear it - I can't remember precisely but there are threads on it.
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Old 06-01-2018, 07:05 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
Faint memory tells me that sometimes deleting reaper-vstplugins.ini as an example will clear it - I can't remember precisely but there are threads on it.
Yeah, I am aware of that. Yes, deleting any ini files creates a new one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by karbomusic View Post
If memory serves, if a plugin errors/crashes while being initialized Reaper may blacklist it and not load it any longer
If you'll delete lines with these plugins and save the file(vstplugins.ini), Reaper will scan them again.
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Old 06-01-2018, 09:03 AM   #6
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Hello.

I may have a solution for you ---- Keep reading

This has happened to me and it is very frustrating.

Like others I had to re-scan my VST folder, but this only partially worked some VSTs still did not reappear.

I'll share with you a workaround, but then get to the "blacklist" protocol and share a hack.

First, one simple thing that works is to go to your plugin folder and <copy> + <paste] the problem VST file. This will create a duplicate like this: nameofvst-copy.dll When you re-start Reaper (or Scan for New Vst) this dll will now be listed. Now a pretty solution, but it works. Not a long lasting solution, because Reaper might re-blacklist this vst if it crashes. Note: this solution is GREAT if you have a VST that cannot run more than one instance (perhaps the reason for crashing?). When you create two or three copies of the same .dll, you can then load three of the same VST without any multiple instances crash. Very very useful trick to know

Now the hack. This is a solution I found --- it is not very programmer savvy, but it works.

The blacklist ini file is in this folder :

C:\Users\theflow\AppData\Roaming\REAPER *** replace theflow with your own computer name

The file is called: reaper-vstplugins64.ini *** for the Reaper 64 bit

Open this file with NotePad

Then, search for the name of the problem VST.

Say for example: problem vst = FA36_Full **note: this is a guitar amp

FA36_Full.dll=683AC01ACF2FD301

The above is not listed because it lacks code info.

If working it would look more like this:

FA36_Full3.dll=683AC01ACF2FD301,2000407811, Nameofmanufacture (FA36 Full3)

So, you may be wondering, "Ok, but how do I know the number to the right of the comma (,) should be? (i.e. the 2000407811 of my example).

Well... I was also wondering. I don't how how this number is attributed, but decided to test something out --- I simply put in a random number and tried it out. It worked!!! In my test I put in as the Nameofmanufacture a fun name --> I CREATED THIS FOR FUN. When I re-scanned in Reaper the VST re-appeared with my fun name.

** perhaps make a backup of the ini file before the mess around with in - just in case.

Well. That's all I got. I wish I knew how to prevent Reaper from automatically blacklisting. Would be create to have a popup warning box: "Do you wish to blacklist this plugin Y or N"?.

Let me know if this hack works for you.

Cheers
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Old 06-01-2018, 09:31 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RDBOIS View Post


Say for example: problem vst = FA36_Full **note: this is a guitar amp

FA36_Full.dll=683AC01ACF2FD301

The above is not listed because it lacks code info.
Just delete this line, save the file and run Reaper. This plugin will be scanned again. You don't need to type in any numbers.
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Old 06-01-2018, 10:23 AM   #8
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"Could you please show the whole process, cause I don't understand what are you talking about."

My question was about blacklisting (checking if plugins are compatible with DAW), which Reaper seems to do "behind the scenes" (automatically).

So there's nothing to show really, Reaper doesn't give you any notification about this, that's why I came here and asked.

What you could do is download the "Fuzz 3 Plus" Plugin (it's free, last download on this page: https://www.audiodamage.com/pages/free-downloads ), install and see what Reaper is thinking about this.

If I remember right, in my case (Win7, 64-bit) it scanned the plugin, I saw the name for a second in the start-up-screen, but when Reaper opened and I looked for the plugin, it just wasn't there.

@rdbois:

Man, these are really creative workarounds, thanks.

I'll try them over the weekend.
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Old 06-01-2018, 11:48 AM   #9
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Installed the VST3 version of that Audiodamage Fuzz without problems.
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Old 06-02-2018, 06:48 AM   #10
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i have it running on win 7 64 bit and it's always been fine for me
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Old 06-05-2018, 10:40 PM   #11
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Generally, if a plugin fails at startup, you WILL get a notification pop-up window.
Reaper doesent actually say in that window that it will be excluding the pop-up.

And of course the somplest remedy IS a CLEAR/RESCAN. That also lets you see any residual "rogue" plugins.
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Old 06-12-2018, 08:29 AM   #12
riffboy
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Strange thing about the "Fuzz 3 Plus".

Had the VST 2-Version installed (Win7, 64-bit), crashed Ableton after some time, in Reaper it didn't show up at all.

About messing with the blacklist.ini-file (reaper-vstplugins64.ini):

I found out the plugin that doesn't show up ("RealStrat" by musiclab) actually uses six instances ( RealStrat.dll; Realstrat 2 Mono.dll; Realstrat 2 Stereo.dll; RealStratEngine.dll; RealStratSampler.dll; RealStratView.dll).

In Ableton, "RealStrat", "Realstrat 2 Mono" and "Realstrat 2 Stereo" show up, so the other three seem to be "invisible" anyways.

I think that's where the problem starts. The plugins functionalitiy seems to be spread across several .dlls and Reaper can't see them all, or get's "confused".

So I didn't want to add further confusion and decided not to mess with the blacklist in this case.

Instead I tried "PatchWork" by Blue Cat. It's a vst-host.

"Realstrat" shows up in PatchWork, just like in Ableton (three dll's).

That means: I can play Realstrat through Patchwork in Reaper.

I think I'll go this way, it's also a nice way to build up a library of FX-Chains that can be used in any DAW.

Thanks to all of you for your help and tipps!
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Old 06-21-2018, 12:13 PM   #13
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i don't like this feature. it could be better if reaper prompted the user and said "this plugin is buggy, would you like reaper to blacklist it?"

but instead some of my old trusty plugins just aren't showing up, even if i haven't used them in a while.
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Old 07-07-2019, 11:56 AM   #14
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Display the blacklisted plugins on Mac:

cat reaper-vstplugins64.ini | egrep -v '^.*,.*$'
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Old 07-07-2019, 12:29 PM   #15
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Reaper is the most forgiving daw for running old buggy plugins, so if Reaper flags it on startup, I would say that there is probably a problem with said plugin.
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